It takes 2 to be They Might Be Giants

March 14, 2013|By Steve Knopper, Special to the Tribune

In They Might Be Giants, John Flansburgh is Roger Ebert. John Linnell is Gene Siskel.

"Sure. Yeah. That's right," says Linnell, who has been collaborating with Flansburgh since the early '80s, when the high school friends moved to Brooklyn to form a rock band. "There's something very likable about Ebert, but I tended to agree with Siskel more often, with his reviews, even though he was obviously a big curmudgeon and a grump."

Linnell, 53, continues the metaphor. For years, the Sun-Times' Ebert reviewed every conceivable movie and wrote tons of lengthy reviews and books, while the Tribune's Siskel was content to keep it brief and memorable. That's true, mostly, in They Might Be Giants, which took off in the late '80s with catchy electro-new-wave college-radio gems on the edge of comedy and satire such as "Birdhouse in Your Soul," "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," "Ana Ng" and "Don't Let's Start." Says Linnell of Flansburgh: "He does all the work, actually. He's the worker, basically. I'm the one getting the free ride.

"I think I'm extremely talented, and that's my value in this project," he adds, with a touch of self-deprecating sarcasm, by phone from a tour stop in Burlington, Vt. "John spends the whole day, from the time he gets up to the time he goes to bed, at work on They Might Be Giants. We wouldn't be here if he weren't doing that.

"But sadly, I don't actually have the energy to do that. I actually need to stare at the blank wall for a surprising lot of the day. I'm one of those people who actually needs peace and quiet, and maybe I'm a little bit Asperger's-y, but I really can't focus continually on things the way he can."

For some reason, They Might Be Giants rarely show up alongside U2, the Rolling Stones and Los Lobos on lists of great bands that have managed to stay together over a long period of time. Since forming 30 years ago in Boston, the duo have had a sort of novelty reputation.

This is, in part, because their lyrics swing between superserious and supergoofy (check out 1988's "Purple Toupee," which is a bizarre metaphor about civil rights).

It is also because the Johns' nasal voices often sound as if they're singing children's songs, even when they're not actually singing children's songs; and they pack so many sounds and ideas into each song that their albums seem like rock circuses.

Both Johns sing and play numerous instruments, but the bespectacled Flansburgh is best known for electric guitar, and the shorter Linnell specializes in accordion and huge baritone sax. They put out a new album every couple of years and over the years have used technology to harness their prolific habits, such as a Dial-a-Song phone line in the '90s and, more recently, a smartphone app that plays TMBG songs at random. They go in and out of kids music, most notably 2005's new-parent staple "Here Come the ABCs."

The band's latest album, "Nanobots," which came out in early March, is characteristically fast-paced and packed with ideas. "Stone Cold Coup d'Etat" recalls classic R.E.M.; "Insect Hospital" is Jimi Hendrix-style acid rock that comes and goes in a minute and a half; "Replicant" supplements its vibes and weird electronic noises with a lounge-music ambience; and "The Darlings of Lumberland," which Flansburgh labored over at home, has what Linnell calls "a very synthetic rhythm track, very beautiful; it doesn't sound like drums; it sounds like sounds."

The album scatters several jingle-style fragments to vary the mood — at six seconds, "Hive Mind" barely has time to repeat the title twice. This is similar to "Fingertips," a songs-within-a-song concept on 1992's "Apollo 18."

Asked for the millionth time about the working dynamic between Flansburgh and Linnell after so many years, Linnell becomes not weary of the question but reflective.

"I think about the dynamic between bands that I like," he says, "like Mick (Jagger) and Keith (Richards) and what it is they're doing together and how they collaborate.

"In all those situations, you tend to undervalue the sum of the two," he continues. "Like (John) Lennon and (Paul) McCartney — Lennon was the genius and McCartney was the showboat or something. A lot of people don't realize how much they like McCartney's songs and how important those were. And, more controversially, Brian Wilson and Mike Love (of the Beach Boys). Brian Wilson gets all the credit for being the big genius, but I think it's undervaluing the necessity of Mike Love in the equation."

Which Giant is Wilson, and which is Love? Linnell won't bite on the question. But like those other partners, the Johns have drifted apart to work on solo projects — Linnell's "State Songs" came out in 1999 — before reconvening.

"I don't see a They Might Be Giants without both of us," he says. "We actually wrote that into our original partnership agreement. We didn't like the idea that either one of us would go off and claim to be the whole thing. It doesn't exist without the two of us. Together. By definition."